I recently moved, and when I returned to the Internet a few days later, I was greeted with several hundred spam pages in Recent Changes. The torrent of spam has not let up, and I estimate that I have blocked 3-500 accounts and deleted as many pages. (I blocked another 5 or so while composing this email.) Certainly the deletion and block logs are long enough: - http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete... - http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/index.php?title=Special:Ipblocklist&limit... I have asked Ashley Yakeley to turn on additional anti-spam measures, but he has not been active on the wiki since January (http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Special:Contributions/Ashley_Y http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/index.php?title=Special:Log&user=Ashley_Y), and has not replied to my talk messages or accompanying emails. I had to do this single-handedly as there are no other administrators. This took up a good chunk of today and yesterday, and the spam is continuing. I cannot handle it much longer: it's incredibly tedious and using up far more time than I have to give it. Measures need to be taken: 1. Email confirmation needs to be checked that Ashley did in fact enable it. I suspect he did not, since I also administrate the LessWrong wiki - which I know for certain has email confirmation is enabled - is being attacked by the same spammers (similar or identical templates & spam) but at a much reduced scale. 2. Additional administrators must be created. I suggest: - dons - Magnus Therning - Neil Mitchell - byorgey - Henk-Jan van Tuyl I am sure there are others who can be trusted. 3. Additional bureaucrats should be created. I suggest myself. 4. ReCAPTCHA enabled for 'edits adding new, unrecognized external links' - which is all of the spam. Further reading: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Combating_spam & http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Anti-spam_features 5. if Ashley is inactive, his account may be a security risk. The English Wikipedia now removes administrator bits after a year of inactivity; we should consider a similar policy. None of these can be taken by myself, as I am neither a sysadmin on Haskell.org nor a bureaucrat on the wiki. If none of these steps are taken and spam continues to remain a problem in 2 months (15 September 2012), I will cease patrolling Recent Changes. I no longer have the time or patience. -- gwern http://www.gwern.net